EVwire brief: Tesla is pushing forward with its global Full Self-Driving rollout, targeting EU-wide approval in Q2 and a broader launch in China by Q3, following initial regulatory progress in both regions.
The company has already secured approval in the Netherlands, which is expected to serve as the entry point for wider European deployment, while in China, Tesla is continuing to work with regulators after receiving early approvals.
Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja discussed the developments during his Financial Overview at the Q1 2026 earnings call:
“We recently received approvals for FSD in the Netherlands. This sets us up well for an EU-wide approval later in Q2, and we're just gated by how the regulators go about it. Additionally, we've also received approvals in China. The broader approval is still not there, but we're working with the regulators in the country and we're hoping that we can get approval by Q3.”
Context:
Tesla’s FSD expansion is now moving beyond the U.S., but the pace remains dictated by regulators rather than technology readiness.
In Europe, approval in the Netherlands marks the first step, with the system expected to undergo EU-level review in Brussels this May. A successful review would unlock access to multiple markets, though timing remains dependent on regulatory processes.
FSD (Supervised) is expected to undergo EU-level review in Brussels next month
Elon Musk noted that even FSD (Supervised) took significant time to approve in Europe. With this in mind, fully autonomous Robotaxi deployment will likely take longer and remain uncertain for now.
In China, Tesla is following a similar path. While initial approvals have been secured, the company is still working toward broader authorization, with a Q3 target for wider rollout. Despite only initial approvals being secured, Tesla’s FSD (Supervised) system has received positive reviews in China.
Tesla owners in China have stress-tested FSD (Supervised) in rural locations, such as this unpaved mountain path (Source)
Same stack, different data
Ashok Elluswamy highlighted that Tesla is deploying the same core FSD system globally, with regional adaptation coming primarily from localized driving data.
“From a technology standpoint, what we deployed in Netherlands and Europe is the same exact architecture and training procedure and so on, except it had more Europe data. And I suspect the same thing will be true for Unsupervised FSD as well.
“Whatever we used to solve in the US will work in other places in the rest of the world too, provided we were able to add the data from the local regions.”
Source: Tesla
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